


Trying To Be A Good Mother

by LadyPrincePotter



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: And Out of the Picture, And This is So Indulgent, Billy Needs A Supportive Mom, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bisexual Steve's Mom, But Bear With Me Please, Dialogue Heavy, First Fanfic in Like 5 Years, From Steve's Mom POV, God I Am So Projecting Here, It's awful, JFC Indiana, M/M, Sexual Education Talks, So I gave him one, Steve Has a Good Mom, Steve's Dad is a Dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 17:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPrincePotter/pseuds/LadyPrincePotter
Summary: Sharon Harrington hadn't expected to find her son naked on the couch when she got home. Let alone with another boy. Luckily for them, she's a pretty accepting Mom.So, I was a little sad of Steve having such a dick Mom (mostly because I lucked out and got an awesome one). So, I wanted to give my favorite Stranger Things boy a good one, too.





	Trying To Be A Good Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Okie doke peoples, this is my first fanfic in at least 5 years and only like the 5th fiction piece I have ever written in my life. I know I have crappy writing, but please bear with me. I wanted to get this out. I wrote it in like 4 hrs.  
> All of the allusions to future chapters you see are real, and I'll try to keep writing this as much as I can. Unfortunately, things like school and work, also happen, so I'm not going to have a set posting schedule (though I will make one if I feel like I'm abandoning this for too long). I'm a master procrastinator at most things in life, but I'll try to keep up on this as much as possible.
> 
> P.S. I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own. If you find any glaring mistakes, please feel free to let me know. I'd like to know as soon as I can so I can fix it.

“Stephen James Harrington!”

Steve fell off of the couch, though luckily he also grabbed the blanket that was there taking it with him.

“Uh, hi Mom, what are you doing here?”

She quickly turned around in the doorway of the living room and sighed.

“I live here, son, and I’d like to be able to freely wander around my house without finding my son naked on the couch with someone. Speaking of, who is that on the couch?”

Steve muttered a, “Shit” under his breath and sighed.

“Mom, this is Billy Hargrove. Billy this is my mother, Sharon.”

“Well, Billy, seeing as it’s 4:30pm, are you staying for dinner?”

Billy sat up slowly on the couch, and realized that she was still turned away from them.

“I should actually probably be going home, ma’am-“

“Now, don’t be silly, dear, it’s fine with me if you’d like to stay for dinner. I’d like the opportunity to get to know my son’s…friend.”

Billy and Steve shared a glance. Steve motioned for him to accept his mother’s offer, as he knew that she wouldn’t let this go until Billy said yes.

“Uh, sure, ma’am, if it’s not an issue.”

“Of course it isn’t. Now, please get dressed boys. I’ve seen enough naked men today to last me at least a month.”

Billy and Steve grabbed their clothes that were all over the floor and got dressed quickly.

Sharon walked back to the front door, so she could grab all of the luggage that she had left in the walkway. Grabbing her suitcases, she quickly went upstairs to drop them all off. For just a moment though, she dropped herself onto her bed, and lied there. She sighed and her body completely relaxed.

“My son has a boyfriend,” she mumbled out loud. 

‘Well, maybe a boyfriend. With the way this backward town works, they might just be friends with benefits or something similar.’

With that last thought roaming around her head, she heaved herself up, and walked back downstairs. She walked into the kitchen and started cataloging what was in fridge, as well as what was in the pantry.

“How does fettuccine alfredo sound to you boys?” 

Her voice then lowered into a mumble, as she continued, talking to herself.

“It seems as though that’s the only kind of pasta sauce we have in the house right now. I should have stopped at the store before coming home tonight.”

When she looked up both of the boys were sitting at the breakfast bar, talking quietly with each other. It looked almost as if they were having a quiet argument. Eventually, they realized that she was looking at them, and stopped.

When both boys turned to look at her, she gasped. Billy had a nasty looking black eye and a cut on the other side of his face. 

“Oh my god, what happened to your face, Billy?”

Before he could get a word in edgewise, she continued.

“Stephen, how dare you let this boy walk around without any first aid? Go upstairs and grab the kit that’s under my bathroom sink. It’s got bruise ointment in there. Afterwards, go grab the bag of corn from the freezer. We need to get the swelling down.”

Steve hesitated as if he was nervous about something. When she glared at him, he finally ran upstairs. After a moment of thought, she realized that he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone with Billy. It pained her to think that her son didn’t trust her not to flip out on them. It seemed as if she had some making up to do with her son, if he thought he couldn’t trust her.

“It’s alright, sweetie, we’ll get that looked at and bandaged up all nice and neat.”

Billy had a surprised look on his face, as if no one had offered to help him before. That pained her even more as she realized that this boy must be unused to help. She approached him and gently grabbed his face to turn it towards her, so she could examine it better, but he slapped her hand away. While it wasn’t painful, it was a surprise that he had reacted so harshly.

“Sorry, Mrs. Harrington. Reflex.”

“It’s alright, dear. Would you please allow me to look at your injuries?”

He stared at her for a minute, and eventually nodded slowly. She grabbed his face again, even more gently than she had before and turned it so that she could examine his black eye better. 

“This looks really bad, sweetie. How’d it happen?”

“I tripped and fell on a weight in my room, ma’am.” 

He tried to keep a straight face as he said this, but she knew what to look for when it came to people lying to her. His jaw had tensed while he was talking, and his eyes shifted a bit.

“I can tell that you’re lying to me, but if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

At that moment, Steve came running back down the stairs holding the first aid kit, which he placed on the breakfast bar next to his mother. Next, he ran over to the freezer and grabbed the bag of frozen corn that was in there, before giving that to his mother as well. She grabbed the bag of corn and placed it on Billy’s black eye.

“Hold that there, while I disinfect and bandage this cut.” 

She gestured to Billy and he raised his hand to hold it in place. She turned his head in the other direction, grabbed the tube of bacitracin, put some on her finger, and gently massaged it into the cut on Billy’s face. He hissed a little, but didn’t jerk away or say anything to make her stop. Once she wiped off the excess on a paper towel, she grabbed a bandage and placed it onto his face. Turning his face back the other way, she lowered his hand with the bag of corn still in it, and grabbed the bruise ointment out of the kit. She scooped some out with her hand and started to massage it into the bruise around his eye, but he quickly jerked back.

“I apologize for how painful this must be, but this ointment is designed to help the swelling go down. Please let me put this on your face? It should only take a minute or two.”

She hesitantly raised the hand that still had the ointment on it, and waited for him to move his head back to her. He hesitated. He hesitated for so long that Steve eventually placed a hand on his lower back in comfort, and Billy slowly leaned forward. She tried to be as gently as possible, but he still hissed in pain.

“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m almost done. Then we can put the ice back on and I can get dinner started.”

She eventually finished and went over the kitchen sink to wash her hands.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Harrington.” He placed the pack of frozen corn back on his face.

“Oh please call me Sharon, Billy. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of each other even after tonight.”

“Mom!” 

“Oh please, son, if you boy’s aren’t dating, then I’m the queen of England. Of course I’m going to be seeing more of him. I deserve to know more about my son’s boyfriend. Now be a dear, Steve honey, and grab the cutlery. I’m going to start on dinner. Billy, why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”

With that, she bustled around the kitchen, grabbing pots and pans, grabbing ingredients from the fridge and the pantry, and started making dinner. She heard the boy’s muttering behind her, but they were talking quietly enough that she couldn’t make anything out. 

“Well, boys, I’m waiting.”

“Mom, h-how are you being so calm about this?”

She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at them. She saw the apprehensive looks on their faces, and realized that they must have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were waiting for her to freak out on them, and make a big deal out of it. She turned back to the stove and turned off the burner.  
She muttered under her breath, lowly enough that they shouldn’t hear (but unbeknownst to her they did), “Oh good lord, I always forget how homophobic the 80’s were.”

She walked over to them and grabbed a hand from each of them. 

“Honey, I’m fine with this. This isn’t a problem for me. You want to be with a boy, that’s fine with me. There is no judgement here.” She gave each boy a kiss on the cheek, smiled at them, and walked back over to the stove to continue with dinner. She left them in a stunned silence, both of them staring at her back, as they couldn’t believe how accepting she was being.

“Mom, w-w-what-h-how-I just-,” Steve stuttered for a second.

“Stephen honey, it shouldn’t be that hard to understand. This is fine. I’m not upset, except for the part where you boys were getting it on in the living room,” she gave them a look, “From now on, I expect stuff like that to stay in your room, also preferably when I’m not here to hear you boys at it.” 

Both of the boys blushed heavily and muttered apologies to her.

“Well then, I’m still waiting to hear about you, Billy. Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, my families from California. We moved here at the beginning of the school year last year.” He took a breath as though he was about to continue, when she interrupted him.

“Oh so, you’re also from California! Which part? I’m from Northern California myself.”

“We’re from San Francisco. The weather was always perfect there. Even the rain was perfect. I miss it. Hawkins is such a shithole.” 

“Oh my gosh, that it is so true. Hawkins is so cold. California had much more mild weather when I was there.”

“Mom, you never told me you were from California.” She paused in the middle of preparing the food, but only for a moment.

“Are you sure, honey? Didn’t I tell you about the family that we have over there?”

“No, mom, you didn’t.” She could hear the tension in his voice.

“Well, I apologize, sweetie. I guess I’d been meaning to, but I just kept on forgetting.”

“Wow, what a surprise,” Steve muttered under his breath. There were apparently a lot of things his mother hadn’t been telling him.

“Well, how’d you boys meet?” She quickly got the conversation started again, not wanting to get into an argument with her son while his boyfriend was sitting at the counter. 

“Well, the first time we ever actually interacted with each other was that Halloween Party last year.” Billy started the conversation up again, realizing what she was doing.

“Oh dear, that was when-,”

“Yes, mother, that was when Nancy broke up with me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t mean to bring up such a sore subject-,”

“Oh my god, mom, can you just stop?! What’s with the interrogation? Why are you asking all of these questions? You never did that when Nancy was over. Is it because he’s a boy? Are you secretly disgusted with us or something?! What=.” 

“Of course not, honey! Why would I be against my son being bisexual when I’m also-.“ 

She quickly cut herself off from giving too much away, but realized in the silence that followed that she already had.

“What?” Steve gasped in shock, not ever having realized or been told this about his mother.

She quietly sighed, realizing that she really had given herself away and turned towards the boys. Both had astonished looks on their faces, and she knew she had to come clean.

“Why do you think I divorced your father, son?”

“Because he was a cheating asshole.”

“Well, apart from that.” She rolled her eyes, remembering her ex-husband. 

“I never realized there was more than one reason.” 

“I guess I should have told you years ago, when your father and I got divorced. I should have told you the truth." She took a deep breath and continued, "Aside from the fact that he was a cheating asshole, your father was also very homophobic. I’ve known for a very long time that I wasn’t completely straight, but when I fell in love with your father, I thought that part of me was gone. I went into that marriage thinking he was my one and only. I guess I really should have learned more about him, because by the time we had you, we were already falling out of love. At that point, I realized that women to me were still just as beautiful as the men were. And then I caught your father cheating. I finally had an excuse to get out of that loveless marriage. So, we got divorced and I wanted custody of you. Your father tried to fight me on that, but his new girl didn’t like the fact that he had a son, so he gave into her, gave you to me, and the rest I guess is history.” 

She paused, taking a deep breath, and looked up at her son again. He looked so much like his father. That used to pain her, and it finally occurred to her that she had been avoiding the house on purpose. Because she didn’t want to see her ex-husband’s face. It felt like a slap to her face, the realization that she really had been such an awful mother to her son. Awful enough that he felt he couldn’t trust her with this part of himself. Awful enough that he apparently hadn’t known about her past, because she had never told him. It stung so badly, that she started to feel tears coming to her eyes and she knew that this was a crappy way to start a relationship with her son’s boyfriend, but she had to get this out. She walked up to her son, and put her arms around him. 

“I am so sorry, honey, that I never told you these things about me. That you felt like you couldn’t trust me. I’m so sorry that I’ve been such an awful mother.”

She leaned against his chest, realizing again just how much of her son’s life she had missed, because she had been too busy trying to be away from this tiny homophobic town and the reminder of her asshole ex-husband. He was so tall now. He was so much taller than her, that her head only came up to his shoulders. She had missed this change in him. Sure, she had been around the house, leaving him money every time she went out of town for her job, but she hadn’t been present. They had just been two people sharing a house, and not real family. 

“I can’t say it’s okay, mom, because, yea, it really fucking hurt. Having you here, knowing you were here, but you just weren’t caring. It really, really hurt.”

She could feel his tears falling on her head, making her head damp, and she knew that she too was leaving damp tear stains on her son’s shirt, but it felt so good to get out the tears and the pain and the realization that she really had been failing. She’d been failing for a while. Finally, the tears stopped, and she slowly let go of her son. She turned to Billy.

“Sorry, sweetie, for all of the hysterics. Guess I haven’t made the best first impression, huh?”

She quickly turned back to the stove. She grinned a little when she realized that dinner hadn’t been burnt, and that she could salvage the food. She wiped away the last of her tears and got back to making dinner. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw that Billy had her son in a hug, and that Steve was most likely still crying into his shoulder. He was gently rubbing his hand up and down Steve’s back, calming him down, and she knew that her son was in good hands. They very obviously cared for each other at least, even if they might not be in love. She finished up dinner and grabbed the plates Steve had put out. She plated them all some food and placed it on the breakfast bar in front of the boys. While she had been finishing up dinner, the boys had separated and were sitting next to each other, chatting softly. They said a quiet thank you and started eating. 

“Wow, Mom, this is actually really good. Why don’t you normally cook like this?”

“Excuse me-,” She looked up at her son indignantly and caught the teasing look in his eye. This was him forgiving her a little, and she realized he was trying to rebuild the bridge between them that she had allowed to fall apart. She smiled at him.

“Why, honey, it’s not every day that I get to meet my son’s boyfriend. Maybe I’m just trying to impress him a little. Especially after the embarrassing show I just put on.”

“It’s alright, ma’am, I understand how hard being a single mom can be. My mom had it hard, too.”

As she looked at him, she caught the flash of surprise on Steve’s face from the corner of her eye. It occurred to her that this was the first information he had volunteered, without her prompting. 

“Is she here with you? I’d be glad to meet her.”

Billy smiled sadly, and she realized what he was going to say, before he said it.

“Nah, she, uh, she died back in California. It’s one of the reasons why my dad wanted to move to Hawkins. To get away from her.”

She saw how his face tightened at the mention of his father. She was starting to put together pieces of a very unflattering picture. That he was surprised she would want to heal his injuries. The fact that he slapped her hand when she went to touch his face. That he mentioned a single mother, but also had a father who would take his son away from her grave. She didn’t have all of the pieces yet, but she knew that as she got more pieces, that she was going to have to have some serious words with this boy’s father. 

“I am so sorry, honey, that he did that. It must be hard to be away from her. If you ever need the ear of a mother, though, sweetie, you can always come to me.”

The look of surprise crossed his face again.

“Thank you, ma’am, that’s very kind of you.”

“Of course, sweetie, you are my son’s boyfriend after all.”

She smiled slyly at them, and noticed a blush cover both of the boys’ faces. 

“Now, let’s finish dinner. I’m exhausted from the long plane flight home, and would like to go to bed soon. Billy, if you’re staying here tonight, please make sure you boys keep the noise level down. Stephen, have you finished your homework yet? You both have school tomorrow.”

The red got even darker on both of the boys’ faces, and she couldn’t resist letting out a laugh at how embarrassed they were getting.

“Oh come now, you boys are old enough that I know I couldn’t stop you having sex if I tried. Though, I will ask if you boys are using protection. Have you both been tested yet? It’s very important to know these things.”

“MOM!” Steve shouted in embarrassment, hiding his face in his palms. Billy’s face was as flushed as it was going to get, and he was currently hiding his own face in his arms. She let out another loud laugh, and while she knew that she was embarrassing her son, she really did need the answers to those questions.

“Okay, honey, I’m sorry for teasing you both so much. But, it really is important that you answer those questions. Are you boys using protection? And have you both been tested?”

While the boys continued to blush tomato-red, they knew that she was serious. The boys shared a confused glance though, as though they didn’t know why was asking. 

“I, uh, Mom, why would we need protection? It’s not like either of us can get pregnant. And tested for what?”

She paled and slumped against the breakfast bar a bit. 

‘This is the 1980’s. Knowledge of AIDS and other STDs isn’t as common yet,’ she thought to herself.

“Have you boys heard of AIDS before?”

Billy paled while Steve continued to look confused. Steve glanced at Billy, before looking back at his mother.

“No, Mom, what is that?”

“What are they teaching you in Sex Ed classes these days,” She muttered, staring at the breakfast bar with a lost look in her eyes.

“Mom, what are you taking about? What are Sex Ed classes? What’s AIDS? You’re starting to freak me out,” Steve’s voice was getting louder in clear agitation, as his mother continued to look blankly at the counter. She looked up at him and knew that she really had failed her son if she hadn’t had this talk with him. Granted she had given him the sex talk when he hit puberty, but she had only given him the heterosexual version. She had only mentioned pregnancy in correlation to condoms. 

“It looks like I need to give you boys a talk. Billy, you look like you know what AIDS is. Can you tell me what you know?”

“When I was in California, they called it the “gay plague”. That’s all I really know.”

She sighed. It looks there was a lot she had to cover. She glanced down at their plates, and was glad to realize that the boys had finished their food. She knew she had to give them this talk, and that it couldn’t wait, so she was going to have to wait to finish her dinner. She grabbed up all of their plates, put hers on the counter and put the boys’ in the sink. 

“Okay boys, let’s go sit in the living room and I’ll tell you what I know.”

They both followed her out to the living room, blushing when they realized they had left the blanket on the floor from when they had been frantically putting their clothes on. She looked at the couch, and took the armchair that was sitting next to it. She really didn’t need the reminder that she had caught her son having sex in the living room.

“Sit down boys and let’s start this conversation. First off, you boys need to know I’m not upset with you, I just forgot how little is known about this stuff here.” ‘In this time period,’ she finished in her head. “AIDS is known as an STD, a sexually transmitted disease, or an STI, a sexually transmitted infection. They’ve only just started doing studies to find out what it is and how it affects people. I’m not going to give you the whole history and what-not about it, but what you should know is that it is dangerous enough to kill you. People have died from this. There are also many other kinds of STDs or STIs. So, I need both of you to get tested at a health clinic as soon as possible. That leads in to what I meant about protection. Condoms don’t just help prevent pregnancies, but they can also help prevent transferring STDs. So, I’m going to go to the store tomorrow, and buy you boys some condoms. I’m also going to look around for a health clinic that will do the kind of tests I’m looking for. We’ll probably have to go to Indianapolis or Chicago for that, but that’s not a problem.”

Both boys look horrified at the information she gave them, and while she felt bad for frightening them, especially if both of them were clean, she knew that she had to tell them. If only to keep them safe. 

“So now, if you boys could keep it down, I’m going to go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

She got up to leave, and paused for a moment.

“Also, if either of you have any questions about this stuff, feel free to ask. I want you boys to be safe, okay? Good night.”

And with that she was across the hall, up the stairs, and flopping onto her bed with absolutely no grace at all. Before she could do any of her nightly ablutions or even change into any pajamas, she was out like a light. (And thus had no knowledge of what her boys were talking about, which was mainly, ‘what had she meant by Sex Ed classes, and how did she know so much about what all of this stuff was’.) She had given clues away to her best kept secret, and had no idea what kind of shit she was going to be falling into.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading my first fic in forever! It's greatly appreciated that you made it this far. I'll try and keep writing as much as I can. 
> 
> P.S. I'd like to thank every Harringrove fic author for writing such great stories, because they are the inspiration I needed to start writing again. THANK YOU!


End file.
